A guide to giving gifts along party lines

During the holiday season, most people are filled with
goodwill.

Except for me.

My fellow political aficionados will understand what I mean.

As your family sips eggnog together Christmas Day, it will be
impossible not to rub the recent congressional defeat into your
Republican uncle’s face.

And your vegetarian cousin who insists on wearing clothes made
only of hemp? Let the hippie-liberal jokes roll.

So if making fun of your friends’ and family members’ political
differences sounds like a jollier time than putting them aside, the
following gift guide is for you.

For the Right:

JESSICA”ˆDONIG/daily bruin Send your conservative
acquaintances a pint of frozen goodies from the Star Spangled Ice
Cream Company.

The enticing flavors, such as "Smaller Governmint" and "Cherry
Falwell," which you can find at starspangledicecream.com, will
taste even better once you tell the recipient that 10 percent of
the profits are donated to the troops.

I’m planning to send my uncle some the day before the 2008
presidential election ““ hopefully he’ll go into a sugar coma
and not be able to make it to a polling place.

For the extreme right-wingers on your list, give a subscription
to RUSH 24/7 ““ a feature on Rush Limbaugh’s Web site that
allows the subscriber full access to all of the material Limbaugh
features on his show. It gets better ““ you can even watch and
listen to him live on the Internet as he makes a fool of himself
during his radio broadcasts.

And really, $59.90 for a year’s worth of insightful,
prescription drug-inspired rants is a great bargain. Also, a nice
present for the liberal conspiracy theorist who’d like to get into
the enemy’s head.

For the Left:

Your wild Democratic girlfriends will appreciate the scandalous
and witty lingerie available at cafepress.com.

The "I shave because I don’t like Bush" thong will be sure to
raise eyebrows when it’s unwrapped on Christmas morning.

And since hating Bush is the only message Dems can seem to agree
upon, it’ll please all of your liberal friends.

For the dreadlocked nature lovers in your life, a gift
certificate to Whole Foods is sure to please.

They’ll feel good about being overcharged for their purchases as
they buy pesticide-free fruits and veggies for the sake of saving
the environment.

Bonus: If they do their shopping in Hollywood, your tree-hugging
friends can admire the two Hummers they parked between as they load
their groceries into the car.

For the children:

It’s never too early to begin inundating your nieces and nephews
with political rhetoric.

If tolerance, gay rights and making the world way more
complicated than it needs to be for a 6-year-old is on your
personal agenda, the 10th-anniversary edition of "Heather Has Two
Mommies" is now available at Amazon.com.

If you’d rather spread paranoia than holiday cheer, however, you
can pick up a copy of, "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My
Bed!," a heartwarming tale of two kids who start a lemonade stand.
And then the government taxes all their money away and steals their
portrait of Jesus ““ also conveniently available from
Amazon.com.

Reality is harsh ““ but the youngins will have to face it
some time or another.

For those who couldn’t really care less:

We can’t, of course, forget the jaded politicos, the ones who
began as young idealists but now refuse to vote or do their taxes
because it’s the government’s way of controlling us.

A "Property of Colbert Nation" T-Shirt from Colbertnation.com
will be the only thing he needs to declare his disinterest and
announce his apathy to the world.

Nothing says cynicism like wearing Stephen Colbert’s logo across
your chest.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a good-natured rivalry will
tell you there is never an excuse to give your enemy a break, and
the holidays are no exception.

So the next time a newscaster smiles at you from your television
and declares that it’s time to put all this partisanship behind us
and come together to work toward common grounds, don’t fall for
it.

It’s just the other side trying to throw you off guard.

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